When you first learn to drive, there are a few things that are, shall we say, intimidating.

For me, there was parallel parking and changing lanes at high speeds. Both of which were challenging in a 1971 Buick Electra 225 Limited, which was one of Detroit’s longer offerings. Seemed to be the length of a Greyhound Bus and almost required an airport tarmac to turn it around.

Driving from my hometown of Ashdown, Arkansas, to the twin cities of Texarkana, Arkansas and ...

It’s time the lunchroom ladies got their due.

At Burke Street Elementary in Ashdown, Arkansas, (and later at Ashdown High School) the kids in my grade were respectful of all adults. But just like at home, we sometimes complained about the food. Especially the food in the lunchroom.

Now, part of that had to do with the fact that my mom is a fabulous cook. She could cook a potato 50 different ways from Sunday. It made me a connoisseur of the ...

The late comedian Norm McDonald once joked about how just a century and a half ago, our great grandfather was lucky if he had one photo of himself.

With the advent of cell phones, Norm pointed out that a century and a half from now, people would proudly offer to show off a million photos of their great grandfather.

It’s funny because it’s true.

Those who didn’t grow up with an actual camera, film, and scrapbooks full of photos really have missed out ...

The ownership we feel for places we have lived seems absolute. Any house we’ve called home was ours. No one else’s. Even if several others lived in it before or after we did.

Such was the case of the house on Beech Street where my family lived in the 60s and early 70s in Ashdown, Arkansas.

I’ve written of that house more than once in this space. Each time I did, it never crossed my mind that a reader would reach out ...

If you look at what’s missing from this great land, it’s a barstool on which to sit, good home cookin’, and a counter on which to eat it.

The diners of yesterday need a revival.

It wasn’t just the amazing food; it also was the coffee that was served in cheap mugs by the waitresses who could juggle more things than a Ringling Brothers employee.

It was the truck drivers interacting with the locals. The locals were regaled by stories of the road seen from ...

When I was a kid in Ashdown, Arkansas, I was surrounded by old people. It wasn’t so much that all of the other folks were actually old it’s just that when you’re a kid, everyone besides you seems old.

Not only did they seem old, they acted old. They ate old. They watched old. They drove old. They wore their hair old. They smelled old.

I’ll clarify that last one momentarily.

When you’re young, you have unlimited energy. I’m reminded of this every ...

We called it light bread. Others called it white bread. Regardless of what it was called, in my hometown of Ashdown, Arkansas and most of the rest of the South it was the foundation of the Southern food pyramid.

And it was found aplenty at our home on Beech Street. You never knew when company might come.

Over the years, I slowly fell away from light bread. I was encouraged to eat wheat and other “healthy” breads by well-intentioned doctors and wives.

But ...

The Jetsons got a lot right. Flying cars are now a reality. Zoom meetings. Robot vacuum cleaners. And video phones.

One thing that was absent from that cartoon show was something that’s been around for well over 100 years. Something we still use today, and I think will still be around in some form: The regular old telephone.

We don’t use a rotary phone anymore (maybe some of us still do), but if I had to narrow it down and pick just ...

If we’re honest, some products aren’t that different from each other. But during the 50s, 60s, and 70s, our moms were extremely loyal to the ones they liked.

And advertising had a lot to do with mom’s loyalty, and ours.

Growing up in front of a large, RCA console TV in Ashdown, Arkansas, I learned a lot about the products in the pantry, medicine cabinet, and bathroom.

Companies spent a fortune to send repeated messages designed to educate and convince you why their ...

Our grandparents had it figured out. They lived life on their terms.

Today, we live life on society’s terms. And the evidence that we regret it is all around.

The first bit of proof that my grandfather and grandmother had control of how their day would go is the fact that they had no alarm clock.

They didn’t need one.

As the rooster crowed, my granny was already in the kitchen pouring her and my papa a second cup of coffee.

The coffeemaker didn’t have ...